Environment Portal

   (A) the international competitiveness of vegetables is not just depend on comparative advantage

1. Vegetable international competitiveness depends on competitive advantage rather than comparative advantage

First, because the premise of free trade are still not being met. Although (WTO Agreement on Agriculture “and made the world trade in agricultural products to achieve more freedom, but also the special status of agriculture so that countries will not easily give up its protection. Died later, although the lower tariff barriers, but the technical barriers, the green barriers there is an upward trend in non-tariff barriers. Second, the technological level of the theory of comparative advantage assumption of constant contradiction with reality. The rapid development of world science and technology, so that trade competition and vegetables mainly for scientific and technological level of competition. Therefore, the international competitiveness depends on competitive advantage rather than comparative advantage.

2. The competitiveness of China’s shortcomings in vegetables

(1) the quality of our vegetables, can not dock with the international market, especially the pesticide residue problem is especially severe, leading to foreign countries banned the import of the events have occurred. Quality can not go up to China’s vegetable exports have to take low-cost strategy, when the big increase in exports, I was very easily be accused of dumping. Even if does not lead to dumping, the long-term low-cost strategy also makes the price elasticity of China’s vegetable exports to lose.

(2) the technological backwardness of vegetables, a serious constraint to obtain a competitive advantage. Along with economic development and improved living standards, the World Vegetable technological development to increase production shift its focus from food security and environmental protection; and vegetables in China is still the focus of scientific research to improve vegetable production, improved varieties developed less often associated with production and market out of touch .

The effects of climate change on the environment have been well documented over the last few years, with global warming being the most publicised. The latest news on climate change however offers a more random warning from some of the best chefs and sommeliers from France.

They are claiming that global warming will have such an impact on the weather in France that the country’s vineyards will degrade to such a level that they won’t be able to produce quality wines. The group have claimed that if climate change is left unchecked the best wines in the world will one day come from Scotland such is the severity of the impact of global warming.

Vineyards in France have already suffered this year as a result of climate change, with freak weather conditions and new diseases affecting the plants.

Some of the leading names in French gastronomy wrote a letter to the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, claiming that climate change is one of the most important environmental issues of our time and if left unchecked the future of the French wine industry is at stake.

According to some predictions, global warming could lead to the south of England being too hot to grow vineyards in by 2080 unless the problem is addressed.Some of the leading names in French gastronomy wrote a letter to the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, claiming that climate change is one of the most important environmental issues of our time and if left unchecked the future of the French wine industry is at stake.

According to some predictions, global warming could lead to the south of England being too hot to grow vineyards in by 2080 unless the problem is addressed.

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Today, as U.S. electric power demand grows and environmental and energy security issues become more urgent, there is a growing concern that the current balance encourages the construction of new power plants rather than investment in the conservation of electric power.

This subject is coming to the fore, in part, because of the capacity challenges that the electric power industry will start facing in the next few years. But at least as important is that conservation is coming to the top of the agenda across the U.S. economy-an emphasis that has not been seen for decades.

That, in turn, forces us to focus on the dynamics of conservation or, as it is also called, energy efficiency. Most industry observers agree that there is indeed a “power conservation investment gap” in the U.S. But the gap does not exist for the reasons most people think.

Misperceptions about the reasons behind the conservation gap lead to a focus on the wrong set of fixes and set unrealistic expectations. To close the gap, we must first address these misperceptions and identify the gap’s real causes.

The first misperception is that power conservation potential has hardly been tapped. The reality is quite different-a great deal of power conservation has already occurred. The U.S. has slowly but steadily reduced its electric intensity-the amount of power used per unit of economic output-over the past two decades.

Overall, the weather-normalized electric intensity of the U.S. economy has declined 18 percent since the mid-1980s. And most of these efficiency gains occurred during a period when the real price of power was steadily declining.

The cumulative effect is quite dramatic-if the U.S. consumed electricity with the same intensity it did in 1987, its power system today would need the daily operation of additional power supply equal in size to the combined power systems of Texas and California.

Climate Change

Now-a-days we listen Climate Change more often than before. Climate change is a global phenomenon and the term “Climate Change” is indeed a straightforward expression for such a complex subject. In fact, climate change has more than we can comprehend from this phrase and that is why it is quite essential to go at defining climate change in today’s scenario. In the present glossary of researchers and scientists, climate modification as a term is no longer in use and effect. The reason behind this is that we have come to realize the effect of the changes we make to our environment will eventually increase the temperature in many parts of the world, but at the same time will also be decrease in temperature for few parts of the planet. This however, creates a general imbalance in the climate of the world which in turn leads us to the phrase, “Climate Change.”

While wondering the effects of the climate change, the things you know of as climate modification is actually referred to as global a global phenomenon of climate change. However, with all the details and statistics we have in hand at present, we can definitely conclude that the world is unquestionably warming with the temperatures rising like never before. Climate change is a global problem with many natural disasters started taking shape; the general awareness of this factor is really low. For the better understanding of the issues associated with the climate change, we require a simple definition for climate change in relation to the warming of the planet. And this definition needs to be the one that brings us the essence of this problem without compromising the simplicities. However, the easiest and most precise definition is that climate change is the effect greenhouse gases have on the earth’s overall climate. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide and methane, but are not limited to these two.

PROMOTING SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE IN INDIA

D.AMUTHA.MA.MPHIL,                                                                                                                  ASST.PROFESSOR IN ECONOMICS

ST.MARY’S COLLEGE (AUTONOMOUS)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      TUTICORIN                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  amuthajoe@gmail.com

Introduction

                                    Agriculture sector, world over, has experienced a phenomenal growth since the mid-twentieth century. The growth, driven by Green Revolution technology, has made a significant dent on aggregate supply of food grains, ensuring food security to the growing population. The next stage of agricultural growth however, faces a serious challenge in terms of sustainability. Whereas the main problem faced by the developing countries in the south pertains to sustainability of resource use, the main challenge facing the developed economies in the north is overuse of chemical inputs. These problems have led to increasing awareness and a felt need for moving away from the input intensive agriculture perused during the Green revolution phase, to sustainable farming in different parts of the world. While the need for a paradigmatic shift in the growth strategy is well recognized, the transition from input intensive to sustainable farming however, has certain inherent difficulties. Notwithstanding these limitations, policies in both the north as well as the south have led increased emphasis on promoting sustainable agriculture.

                                          India can safely be characterized as an agricultural country despite the recent spurt in manufacturing and services and the declining share of agriculture in the national income, since majority of its workforce (~ 65%) are still engaged in agriculture and allied activities. It has been the noblest profession in India since the time immemorial and has been carried out on sustainable basis. It is only relatively recent phenomenon that large-scale forest areas, grazing lands and waste lands have been converted into croplands to support the rising population, which has caused ecological imbalance and atmospheric pollution. With no further scope for expansion of agricultural land efforts have been made to enhance the production of food grains using high-yielding variety of seeds, fertilizers and irrigation along with advanced farm equipments. However, so-called green revolution is cofined to a few crops, viz, wheat, rice and maize and has been possible only in restricted areas, i.e., Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh and certain selected districts of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamilnadu.